Who knows what's good to eat? Infants fail to match the food preferences of antisocial others

Humans gather most of their knowledge about the world, including objectively true facts and specific cultural norms, by observing and being taught by others. Some individuals are worthy teachers and objects of imitation, having knowledge of cultural practices and positive intentions to inform. Others are better ignored because they are ignorant, because they mean us harm, or simply because we do not wish to be “like them.” This study examines whether 16-month-olds are sensitive to the pro- or antisocial behavior of a source that demonstrates preference for two novel foods. Infants took the emotional reactions displayed by novel and previously prosocial sources, but not antisocial sources, into account when deciding what to eat. These results suggest that others’ social behavior influences infants’ likelihood to match their preferences, illustrating the influence of social evaluation on social learning.     

Enhancing young people's social competence and health behavior: An important challenge for educators, scientists, policymakers, and funders

Large numbers of America's young people engage in multiple high-risk behaviors that may jeopardize their health and social development. Given the gravity of this situation, many federal agencies and national organizations have called for the implementation of school-based K-12 social competence and health promotion programs. Unfortunately, there is a gap between the comprehensive programs that policymakers are asking educators to implement and the limited scope, duration, and intensity of state-of-the-art health promotion programs that scientists have developed and evaluated. As a result, most schools currently adopt well-marketed programs that lack documented effectiveness. Although current research indicates that brief, well-designed, theory-driven competence promotion and health education programs produce short-term benefits, there have been no controlled, longitudinal field studies to evaluate the long-term effects of K-12 efforts. This paper proposes that policymakers and funding agencies support long-term collaborations among educators and scientists to develop and evaluate K-12 comprehensive social competence and health education programs and identifies critical issues that funded projects should address.     

Divergent and Convergent Group Creativity in an Asynchronous Online Environment

This study examined the influence of various group diversity dimensions on collaborative creativity related to the healthcare system. Research findings on the association between diversity and brainstorming performance has been mixed. Diversity that increases cognitive stimulation or promotes elaboration has been shown to increase group performance. Participants exchanged ideas, replied, and elaborated using an electronic discussion board in an asynchronous fashion in groups of five over a period of 4 weeks. The groups varied in diversity of ethnicity, gender, age, and political orientation, but participants were not made aware of this diversity. Age and gender diversity were related to lower levels of replying to ideas and lower idea novelty but political diversity was related to increased replies and novelty. If a topic engages people with different perspectives to actively respond to others’ ideas, this can increase the creative potential of idea sharing in groups. Political or value-based diversity has the potential for creative solutions if the other participants’ political or value-based identities are not made salient.     

Creative Occupational Therapist: It's About the Client Using Focus Groups to Explore Creativity in Occupational Therapy

Although creativity is an important aspect of occupational therapy theory and practice, there have been few studies that would explore this concept in the context of the occupational therapy process. This was the first qualitative study of creativity in occupational therapy in Slovenia. It was conducted as part of a larger mixed-methods study and included 22 experienced occupational therapists who participated in four focus groups. The focus of the study was on the exploration of different factors that could contribute to creativity and creative strategies in occupational therapy, in either a positive or a negative way. Since occupational therapy promotes a client-centered therapy approach, the role of the client as the motivating factor was of particular interest to our study. Six factors that can influence the creativity of occupational therapists emerged from the qualitative analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). While the client was identified as the key factor, the potential of other factors was also recognized. This qualitative study increased the understanding of the concept of creativity and creative behavior in occupational therapy, and also provided empirical material that formed the basis for the development of a questionnaire on creativity in occupational therapy.     

Les foyers de protection judiciaire de la jeunesse et la prise en charge des jeunes auteurs de délit : représentations sociales et réflexions autour de groupes d’adolescents et d’éducateurs

The educators’ work in juvenile justice residential communities and their capacity of affective attunement to the adolescent's needs is essential for the creation of a protective and enriching context for the adolescent and his life trajectories. This article aims to explore the social representations of educators and young people in residential communities in Italy, through the analysis of their discourses gathered during focus groups. Our results reveal the need to compare these representations and work to narrow the gap between the caregivers and the users, in order to improve the relationship between the different protagonists of the interaction and, consequently, the possibilities of good success of interventions.     

Traduction et adaptation du TEI-SF afin de documenter l’acceptabilité sociale de l’intervention comportementale intensive

Early intensive behavioral intervention is more widely used in large-scale community-based services in Autism Spectrum Disorder. There is an increased need to evaluate the social acceptability of these programs. The present study used a measure of social acceptability as part of a social validation procedure to evaluate a community-based EIBI offered in inclusive childcare, as well as two focused interventions associated with this program. To do so, the Treatment Evaluation Inventory Short-form (TEI-SF) questionnaire was adapted and translated to French. The validation results for the TEI-SF, as well as for the social acceptability of the EIBI programs and procedures, are presented. The results are the first evidence of the validity of the TEI-SF (adapted and translated to French), presenting scores of validity of intervention and a favourable perspective related to the early intensive behavioral intervention and opening the door to further research.     

On using what we know about ourselves in thinking about others: Not so fast

Abstract

We argue that the frequently assumed privileged role of the self as a habitual reference point in social judgments is often hindered by the fact that, unlike other persons, the self is typically represented primarily in terms of internal, unobservable characteristics. This idiosyncratic feature of self-representations may render them incompatible with many other social representations. Yet, such limitations are not universal. In particular, incompatibility is less of a problem when (1) the judgment target is someone psychologically close; (2) accessible self-representations involve distant (rather than recent) self-memories; (3) accessible self-representations are relatively abstract, (semanticized) rather than event-specific; or, (4) social judgements concern not a specific other person but more abstract social concepts such as traits.